How to create Online Form to process Foreign Currencies

eTapestry databases can only be set to one currency at a time. If you receive money in US dollars, for example, then the database needs to be set to US dollars under Management > My Organization > Preferences.

Please read before proceeding: Donations can be processed for donors in other countries and you will receive the funds in your home currency. For example, a donor in Ireland could use their Visa to donate $100 in US dollars to you. Their bank will convert that amount into Euros when the funds are withdrawn from their account because that is the currency their money is in. You do not need to do anything if you simply have donors outside of your home country; their donations will convert to your currency and you will receive $100 in USD. If you use Blackbaud Merchant Services you can read more information on currencies in the article What currencies does Blackbaud Merchant Services disburse in?_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You should only do the following if you’re planning on receiving funds in multiple currencies.If your organization receives money or processes funds in multiple currencies and you need to collect them through DIY forms, there is a workaround to have DIY forms appear to process different currencies. The currency of money disbursed to you is controlled by the processor, but the symbol on the DIY form is controlled by the currency of the database under Management > My Organization > Preferences at the time it goes live. As an example, let's say we have to process and receive funds in two currencies: USD and GBP.

Create two DIY Forms, one for each currency, and choose the appropriate transaction processor on the Settings page of each form.

Alternate the go-live process based on the currency. If your database currency is USD currently, take that form live first and it will have the "$" symbol. Then, switch your database currency to GBP and take the other form live so that it will have the "£" symbol. This will produce two forms with different currency symbols.

Make sure to switch your currency back to the primary one you've chosen to use in the database. If a change has to be made to the form, you may have to repeat this process in order to get the right currency symbol to appear.

Since eTapestry can only have one currency, all of the submissions added to the database will appear to have the same currency symbol (whichever is selected under My Organization > Preferences). You would need to filter out the different currencies when querying and reporting on monies received to get an accurate number because you will have a mixture of currencies all showing on the surface as one currency. You must plan ahead and make sure transactions submitted through the forms are being tracked in a way that you can query and report on them separately. Keep this in mind if you decide to set up multiple forms with different processing currencies. How To Track More Than One Currency

As an alternative to the above, with the use of the API module in eTapestry and a third-party web developer, it is possible to create one form which takes two different currencies as donations. For example, one form with a drop down menu that allows the donor to select the currency they wish. Please contact the appropriate software vendor or IT professional for assistance with this process, which is beyond Blackbaud's scope of support.

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